HEINRICH VON MELK

flourished 1150 early Middle High German poet, the first satirist in German literature. A Benedictine lay brother of the Austrian monastery of Melk, he composed a vivid poem Von des Tdes gehgede (c. 1150-60; "Remembrance of Death" or "Memento Mori"). The monkish theme is traditional, but the poem's satiric edge and unflattering description of the contemporary emerging feudal and courtly culture is new. Heinrich portrays the knights as adulterous and bloodthirsty, the noble ladies as arrogant and vain, and the lower classes as apes of the aristocrats. Another poem, Vom Priesterleben ("About Priestly Life"), is an ironic picture of the behaviour of worldly priests.